Economic development, current events, travel, sustainable living, and fatherhood, all from an agrarian perspective

Monday, February 10, 2014

Third World Green Daddy 56: High-flying media

We’ve taken
a few plane trips lately, in the course of moving to Chicago for the summer,
coming back to Colombia, moving to DC, and now visiting Colombia once
again.These plane trips have inspired me
to reflect on the ubiquity of electronic media, and how this affects our
society.

This
Christmas break we had a decent pair of flights from Washington, DC to Bogota,
Colombia.They were harrowing insofar as
we were traveling with two kids and a lot of luggage, but there were really no
major incidents along the way.

In the
first flight we were “treated” to an episode of the TV show “Parks and
Recreation” on the overhead screens.There was no sound, since we didn’t want to see it and didn’t have
headphones, but from time to time we couldn’t help catching a scene here or
there.We had also seen an episode in
this way on a prior flight a few months ago.Caro finds this show extremely offensive.She doesn’t get worked up about much in life,
and again, all she or I caught of the show were stray scenes, with no
sound.But this perhaps amplified what
offends Caro.Watching the exaggerated
facial expressions of the characters, their exaggerated eye makeup and
mustaches and hair, just gets under my wife’s skin.One of the very clearly defined values of the
general culture in our provincial peasant region of Colombia, and even more
pronounced in my wife’s upbringing in an austere, borderline Marxist household,
is an appreciation for modesty and simplicity.Anything that seems excessive, be it clothes or mannerisms or ways of
talking, whips my wife into a frenzy of annoyance.The mere presence of jewelry or perfume makes
it difficult for my wife to be around someone!

Caro’s
annoyance with this show that we’ve barely even seen struck me as doubly
funny.First off, it is rare and
entertaining to see her break out of her normal, quiet reserve and really get
angry at something.Secondly, it
occurred to me that Parks and Recreation is one of those shows that’s supposed
to be ironic, subtle, the height of our sophisticated humor in the US.But Caro sees it more like someone in the US
might look at one of those ridiculous, over-the-top Mexican joke programs with
people dressed up in silly outfits and acting stupid.She sees shows like Parks and Recreation as a
real cultural nadir!

On many of
these plane rides, there is a lot of violent fare, big-budget action movies and
the sequels thereof.I saw most of Iron
Man 3 on one flight, again in silence.It struck me as so silly and preposterous, representative of an entirely
mistaken tack that much of modern entertainment has taken.It seems that many filmmakers have an
industrial mechanization vision of art—the more, newer technology you put in,
the better it will be.Of course this is
silly.The great drama of Classical
Greece or Elizabethan England, the great novels of the modern US or Latin
America, these cannot be improved upon by adding more gadgets or explosions.Great art speaks to the timeless traits of
humanity, the existential questions, and these remain similar throughout history,
regardless of the technological context in which the art is made.Technology does indeed have a place in art—the
Kindle makes books easier to access for certain people, the Internet allows any
old Joe to post his thoughts on a blog to share with the world, and improved
manufacturing techniques have brought musical instruments within the economic
reach of more people.The raised stage,
the moving camera, the piano, these were technologies that indeed redefined
entire segments of artistic expression.I can even appreciate the fascination and joy caused by really well-done
special effects in a film or a live concert.But when you build art entirely around a technology, when a film is
little more than a platform to showcase bigger and better explosions, then it
ends up not being worth the price of admission, and will certainly not endure
in time as a great work that speaks to people on a deep level.The returns to technology diminish very
quickly in art.

I know I’ve spoken about media violence in past blogs, and specifically about Matt Damon.But I never cease to be shocked
at how much of his film credits have him running about with guns, wreaking
murder and mayhem.The Bourne series,
Green Zone, some movie where he’s in a post-apocalyptic forsaken planet…it
seems like every time I see him in something, he’s waving a gun around.It is particularly shocking because he is
fairly politically outspoken, even radical, in terms of questioning the
prevailing economic and social arrangements in US society, and especially in
questioning war.Why then isn’t he more
discerning in choosing roles that glorify violence?

In the
second leg of the trip, from Miami to Bogota, we were in a bigger plane, with
personal TV monitors in front of every seat.We turned off our monitors as soon as we could, though Sam was
interested in putting on the free headphones they gave to us.He has seen people use headphones, and has used
them long ago with his cousin and his sister, but he isn’t that familiar with
them.So he just put them on his ears,
and I’m not sure if he knew music was supposed to come out, and certainly not
how to make it come out.It made my wife
and me feel sort of bad, because we don’t want Sam to be some kind of wolf
child raised in the wilderness and unaware of the mores and technology of the
society surrounding him.I know lots of
parents want to make sure their kids are electronically savvy; this isn’t a prime
concern of mine, though I realize that technology comprises an important part
of the medium and the language in which our lives take place these days.I just figure our sons will learn whatever
they need to about headphones and electronics and the lot, as new situations
present themselves.I don’t want Sam to
be maladapted, but if he is, I’d rather it be in the sense of underexposure to
technology, and not the more common maladaptation of a kid who is constantly
hooked up to one or more electronic devices, thus cut off from the real world
around him.

After
sleeping for a while, Sam started coloring in these special books we’d bought
him.They’re coloring books with just
one marker, and if you color the pictures with that marker, different colors
and hidden shapes come out.I had gotten
him these books specially for the plane trip, and they were very effective at
keeping him busy.I imagine you could
argue that such a coloring book stifles creativity, since the kid doesn’t
choose what colors to use nor where to put them.It’s true too that they advertise on their
cover that they make for “no-mess coloring”, and usually when a kid’s product
tries to satisfy parents by eliminating mess, it does so at the expense of the
child’s ability to experiment and be in charge of his own creations.At any rate, these coloring books are just an
occasional novelty for Sam—I wouldn’t want him to color exclusively in pre-fab
workbooks like that.At the same time, I
laugh at myself for worrying about stifling my son’s creativity with a coloring
book, when all around us on the plane there were kids staring at iPad screens,
playing video games, and watching the in-flight TVs!

Eventually
the flight crew took away the little bit of autonomy that we had to choose our
own, non-electronic entertainment.Around 5pm, they inexplicably turned off all lights in the cabin, and
the individual overhead lights didn’t work.For a while Sam and I both nobly tried to work in the dark, he coloring
in his book and I reading my John LeCarre novel.But eventually it was too dark even for
that.When I got up to ask the flight
attendants about the overhead lights, I marveled at the view from the back of
the plane:a fleet of glowing screens
floating through a sea of darkness.This
is the future we are creating for ourselves—no choice but to stare passively at
screens in the night of our unthinking.

Anyway, Sam
and I started to watch Mulan on my movie screen.He liked it, and finally had his headphones
connected, though often he would take them off and just preferred to watch the
screen in silence!When the cabin lights
came back on, he got excited and said, “Now I can color!”

It’s not
that Sammy doesn’t like TV.He is crazy
about a show called Handy Manny, about a Latino repairman with a box of talking
tools.I actually like this
program.It presents a positive Latino
role model who values working with his hands.His being a repairman isn’t a bad or shameful thing, a result of a lack of
other options, or a fulfillment of a stereotype.No, his choice of profession is based on his
values, his belief in being autonomous and resourceful and not wasting
anything.He is a valued member in his
neighborhood, because he helps everyone fix their problems.Furthermore, the show is explicitly
educational, but with concrete applications to daily life.In the course of fixing things, Manny
explains how screws go in, how to make plans and measure before doing anything,
and any number of practical handyman tips.Beyond this, there are explicit messages encouraging viewers to fix
things instead of throwing them away, to work and play together instead of
relying on electronic devices, or to go outside instead of watching TV.We still only let Sam watch a few episodes on
the weekend, but I do like this program.

I hope that
in the future, TV will remain a very secondary part of Sam’s life.I don’t mind if TV is one thing among many
that he and Paulo take part in, just as I don’t mind if they eat cotton candy
once in a while if it’s not the mainstay of their diet.The issue is that TV by its nature is able to
so enwrap and monopolize one’s time and attention, that without constant
vigilance to cut down its influence, it can easily take over.

I have seen
hints of this pernicious electronic invasion in Sam’s preschool.First of all, I want to reiterate that I’m
happy with the preschool in our new neighborhood in Virginia, just as I have
been pleased with his preschools in Bogota and our small town in Colombia.But as with these prior schools, I’d be
remiss not to notice and try to remedy things that I see wrong with his current
place.Caro recently took a tour with
the school director, just to get a better sense of what they do in a typical
day.She liked it, and from what she
described to me, I’m happy with most of what the school offers.

But there
are a few problems, and I think they are related to our society’s general
overconsumption of television, and the corresponding expectation to have
everything your way, right away.First
off, there is no set reading time at the school.The kids have two academic classes a day, and
usually these involve reading with the teacher.Kids are also free to look at books on their own during naptime.But there is no designated period when
everyone sits down just to hear a story from the teacher.I worry about this, because I feel that a
major problem with our education system in the US (and in much of the world) is
that we use reading as a tool to accomplish concrete goals (problem-solving,
doing a work task, following instructions, etc.), but not that many people read
for its own sake.Reading as a pastime
in itself is one of the best ways to develop critical thinking, creativity,
imagination, and to explore and appreciate life in general.Much formal education, by overemphasizing
tangible skills and underemphasizing exploration, shows children how to do
things, but doesn’t give them the criteria to understand why we do them, or why
we live in general.

What does
this have to do with TV?A few
things.First off, Sam’s school replaces
reading time with TV.They call it
reading time, but it is actually kids watching a TV.The kids see cartoon presentations of
different classic books like Curious George or the Cat in the Hat.This is in lieu of having the teachers sit down
and read them the actual books.Caro and
I assume that this is in part because most of the teachers have Latino accents
when they read English, so maybe they are uncomfortable or want the kids to
hear a native English voice.The school
doesn’t seem to see any problem with showing a TV show and calling it
reading.But it is a mistake to mix up
reading and television, just as drama or painting or music are different media,
and no one would ever call music by the name of film, or vice versa.Furthermore, by dividing school into
“work-time”, when kids are in class and applying reading to an academic goal,
and “play-time”, when they’re not reading (and when in fact they’re watching
TV), the teachers are reinforcing the habit of regarding reading and thinking
as cumbersome “work”, and defining “leisure” as the passive consumption of
outside (usually electronic) media.Such
an attitude is behind many problems we are facing right now as a society—lack
of critical thinking, passive lifestyles, disengagement from the world.

I also
wonder if the teachers assume that kids won’t sit through an actual person
reading, at least not the same way they remain rapt with the TV.If so, this would indicate a general attitude
of trying not to challenge the kids but rather just providing them with
mindless, attention-grabbing entertainment.Perhaps the same philosophy drives the school’s playing of background
music for a good part of the day.When
kids are playing, they are surrounded by a barrage of recorded kids’ songs.Caro told the director that she didn’t like
this, but the director said most of the teachers think it’s pleasant.It seems to me one more attempt to keep kids
constantly distracted and entertained, so they don’t have to learn how to just
be tranquil and occupy themselves.

The
school’s general philosophy of appeasement probably aligns with the attitude of
many of the parents they serve.If a kid
doesn’t want to eat what’s served for lunch, they try to give him or her
something else to eat.If a child doesn’t
want to participate in a given activity, they invent something else to
entertain him with.I feel that
childrearing in the US has a heavy dose of this attitude of trying to satisfy
children’s every whim, instead of insisting that they do certain things that
are healthy and appropriate for them, even if they don’t initially want to do
them.I can imagine that the school is
reluctant to offend any parents by not catering to their children’s caprices,
so they, like the parents themselves, are compelled to seek any number of
distractions and opiates to keep kids from “acting up”, which is to say from
acting like kids.But as with real
opiates, such an approach requires ever-escalating investments in
distraction.You start with pacifiers
and blankies and stuffed animals, then kids need an endless procession of new toys,
and eventually adolescents need a constant fix of electronic devices, an
addiction that continues into adulthood.The net result is that from infancy to adulthood, people are kept distracted
from the world around them, and from their own thoughts.

Anyway, I
clearly don’t agree with this way of doing things, and I do fear that Sam will
be gradually drawn away from good habits like reading and silence, and drawn
toward the nonstop electronic euphoria that our modern society offers.One consolation is that my kids probably
won’t spend most of their life in the US, so whatever negative tendencies I
feel are more prevalent here, I can keep my kids away from them.But beyond trying to withdraw from this
aspect of today’s world, I think the more responsible attitude is to actively
work to fix it.In that sense, I would
very much like to learn more about Sam’s school’s philosophies and practices
regarding reading time, and perhaps offer my assistance to give kids some
regular, dedicated time slots of having an adult read aloud to them.

I'll leave off this blog post with an ironic reflection on TV and movies.Have you ever noticed that in most shows or
movies, characters rarely watch television?They are too busy doing whatever that episode’s storyline demands of
them, running around, living life.It
makes sense, because it would be boring to watch others watching TV, but
considering that the average person in the States watches two to four hours of
TV daily, it is patently unrealistic if the characters we watch, who are
supposed to be like us, watch none.So
finally what we’re left with is a nation of real people not living life,
watching fictional people, who are the only ones actually doing anything!